The situation surrounding Ken Hitchcock finally leaving the Columbus organization has been seen as a happy one for both Hitchcock for landing a new job in the NHL and for the Blue Jackets because they can stop being tempted to bring him back after firing him years ago. For Blue Jackets president Mike Priest, he’s putting on the good face and congratulating Hitchcock for the job.

That’s all he’s saying about it though, oddly enough. While the Blue Jackets gave permission to the Blues to talk to Hitchcock, Priest had no further comment on the situation aside from a pre-packaged press release as Aaron Portzline of Puck Rakers found out.

There’s two ways to look at it. Either Priest wants to let the situation be done and allow Hitchcock to go quietly to St. Louis (almost certainly the case), or he’s playing the role of jilted executive left unhappy that his best laid plans got smashed to pieces by a team quicker to pull the trigger.

Not going to lie to you, we’re secretly hoping it’s the latter instead of the likely former. The talk that Columbus wasn’t totally sold on bringing Hitchcock back is amusing especially given how Elliotte Friedman reported in his “30 Thoughts” column about how Hitchcock’s consulting role had him on the ice with Scott Arniel hovering around like a grim reaper waiting to take back his old job.

Either way, it’s up to the organization to be more forthright with Arniel. Either fully let him do his thing now or call it a day and find someone else to try and turn around this 2-11-1 team.

Maybe he shouldn’t leave his coach twisting in the wind and just make a decision and now is upset his date left him. If your going to fire him do it sooner rather than later and save face its not like Hitchcock is the only coach out there.